Dust 514, the free-to-play first-person multiplayer shooter for the PS3, hit a major milestone last week when CCP Games officially merged the game’s servers with the EVE Online servers. Now the studio has announced its next major milestone Monday with the imminent launch of the open beta.

All Playstation 3 owners will be able to jump into the Dust 514 on Jan. 22 according to CCP Games.

“The launch of the DUST 514 Open Beta is another step towards our long-term vision for CCP and EVE,” said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP. “But this is just the beginning. As we have done with EVE Online, in the coming weeks, and for years to come, we will continually improve upon and add to the DUST 514experience , as well as add deeper integration between the two games and their communities.”

Current participants of the Dust 514 closed beta should not expect anymore character resets going forward. The merger with Eve Online means that players of the PS3 shooter will be able to join the corporations in the space sim MMO. That means Dust 514 players can start taking on contracts and will be able to keep any money, items or weapons gained from here on out.

CCP’s Nullabor provided additional details on the merger in a blog post where he said, “This is a massive technical and game design endeavour and so the overlap in gameplay is intentionally contained for now. It is of course very important that we do not upset the serious business of internet spaceships.

“In particular the economic balance between a 10-year-old space simulation and a brand new free to play MMOFPS is an obvious concern,” he explained. “So, for this first release, any ISK transfer between EVE and DUST characters will be blocked. This will then be replaced by a taxable transfer mechanism with the intention of easing the currency control to 0% and removing it entirely once we are happy the economies have reached an equilibrium.

“We are already hard at work on the next expansion where you will see things like player owned districts, tighter economic integration and more incentives for EVE characters and corporations to take part in the politics, logistics and outcomes of DUST 514 battles. The design teams will be working with the CSM this year to make sure these plans sit well with capsuleers and mercenaries alike.”

Scott is one of those “weird” over 30 gamers who’s been around since before the days of the Atari 2600 and has been pounding on controllers and keyboards ever since. Sharing his passion of gaming with his two kids and friends put him on a writing kick that he hasn’t been able to shake off.